The Benedictine monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, contains the office of Santo Domingo, Abbot of Silos (r. 1041-1073), who was cannonised in 1076 (ff. 223-26); kept in cupboard no 8: labelled 'Cajon 8' on f. 6, in the catalogue compiled by Ibarette in 1770; with a table of contents added (ff. 242-243) and in the catalogue compiled by the librarian of Silos, Gregorio Hernandez in 1772 (see Boylan, 'Library at Santo Domingo de Silos' (1992)).Rodrigo Echevarria y Briones, last Abbot of Silos (1790-1875) hid some of the books in the neighbouring villages and kept some with his personal archive after the dissolution of the monastery in 1835, when the archives were transferred to the provincial library at Burgos, according to Férotin, (Histoire de l'Abbaye (1897)).The Benedictine abbey of San Martin de Madrid, a dependency of Silos, the personal archive of Echevarria was entrusted to them on his death in 1875 (see Férotin, Histoire de l'Abbaye (1897). In 1877, 69 manuscripts and incunabula including the present manuscript were sold by them to a Madrid bookseller for 16 000 pesetas to raise money for the rebuilding of the Benedictine Abbey of Silos (see Boylan, 'Manuscript illumination' ( 1990), pp. 27-29).Bachelin-Deflorenne, booksellers of Paris, in their sale of 55 manuscripts and 14 incunabula from the library at Silos on 1 June, 1878, lot 17. Bernard Quaritch, London booksellers, bought by them for 1750 francs, together with 13 other Silos manuscripts; purchased by the British Museum from Quaritch, 15 June 1878: a note on (f [vi]).

Notes

Contents: ff. 1-4: Leaves from a liturgical work with the text erased and the dedication rite for a church written over this;ff. 5-222: Antiphonary, imperfect: the offices of the latter part of September and the beginning of October are missing (?one quire lacking after f. 170);ff. 223-226: Office of Santo Domingo;ff. 227-234: Offices of other saints;ff. 235-241: Tonal with parts of the Office of Martin written over.Dates from the period when the Spanish liturgy had been replaced by the Franco-Roman rite.The musical neumes are Visigothic and the melodies are from the Gregorian repertoire.

Select bibliography

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1876-1881 (London: British Museum, 1882), p. 120.